About i-Conference 2006: Speakers
John Seely Brown
John Seely Brown was the Chief Scientist of Xerox Corporation until April 2002 as well as the
director of the Xerox Palo Alto Research Center (PARC) until June 2000 -- a position he held for
twelve years. While head of PARC, Brown expanded the role of corporate research to include
such topics as organizational learning, complex adaptive systems, micro electrical mechanical
system (MEMS), and nanotechnology. He is currently a visiting scholar at the Annenberg
Center and Annenberg School of Communication at USC. His personal research interests
include digital culture, ubiquitous computing, web service architectures, and organizational and
individual learning.
John, or as he is often called, "JSB," is a member of the National Academy of Education, a fellow of the American Association for Artificial Intelligence and of AAAS, and a trustee of Brown University and the MacArthur Foundation. He serves on numerous boards of directors (Corning, Polycom, Varian Medical Systems) and advisory boards. He has published more than 100 papers in scientific journals and was awarded the Harvard Business Review's McKinsey Award in 1991 for his article, "Research that Reinvents the Corporation" and again in 2002 for his article (with John Hagel) "Your Next IT Strategy." In 1997 he published the book Seeing Differently: Insights on Innovation (Harvard Business Review Books). He was an executive producer for the award winning film "Art · Lunch · Internet · Dinner," which won a bronze medal at Worldfest 1994, the Charleston International Film Festival. He received the 1998 Industrial Research Institute Medal for outstanding accomplishments in technological innovation and the 1999 Holland Award in recognition of the best paper published in Research Technology Management in 1998. He was presented with a 2002 Visionary Award by the Software Development Forum and was inducted into the Industry Hall of Fame in November 2004. With Paul Duguid he co-authored the acclaimed book The Social Life of Information (HBS Press, 2000), which has been translated into nine languages with a second edition printed in April 2002. His latest book, The Only Sustainable Edge: Why Business Strategy Depends on Productive Friction and Dynamic Specialization, written with John Hagel, was published in the spring of 2005 by Harvard Business School Press.
JSB received a BA from Brown University in 1962 in mathematics and physics and a Ph.D. from University of Michigan in 1970 in computer and communication sciences. In May of 2000 Brown University awarded him an honorary Doctor of Science Degree. It was followed by an Honorary Doctor of Science in Economics conferred by the London Business School in July 2001 and in May of 2005, the University of Michigan awarded him an honorary Doctor of Science Degree. He is an avid reader, traveler, and motorcyclist. Part scientist, part artist, and part strategist, JSB’s views are unique and are distinguished by a broad view of the human contexts in which technologies operate and a healthy skepticism about whether or not change always represents genuine progress.
Visit John Seely Brown's Web site 
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